DIVMore than 2,000 former slaves provide first-person accounts in blunt, simple language about their lives in bondage. Illuminating, often startling information about southern life before, during, and after the Civil War. /div
Category: Literary Collections

Between 1760 and 1902, more than 200 book-length autobiographies of ex-slaves were published; together they form the basis for all subsequent African American literature. "I Was Born a Slave" collects the 20 most significant "slave narratives." They describe whippings, torture, starvation, resistance, and hairbreadth escapes; slave auctions, kidnappings, and murders; sexual abuse, religious confusion, the struggle of learning to read and write; and the triumphs and difficulties of life as free men and women. Many of the narratives--such as those of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs--have achieved reputations as masterpieces; but some of the lesser-known narratives are equally brilliant. This unprecedented anthology presents them unabridged, providing each one with helpful introductions and annotations, to form the most comprehensive volume ever assembled on the lives and writings of the slaves. Volume One (1770-1849) includes the narratives of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa), William Grimes, Nat Turner, Charles Ball, Moses Roper, Frederick Douglass, Lewis & Milton Clarke, William Wells Brown, and Josiah Henson.
Category: History

Lilma Mclean.Samples, I Was A Slave In America Until 2009, is a story of the long hard years of struggle and inhumane treatment that African slaves had endured. Their struggle of their race continued over the 250 years of slavery. In this present time, blacks have their equality and their freedom from their prior masters, who were the Caucasians. We are now free from their shackles and chains. Our lives are valued as our ancestors lives were valued centuries ago The story hopes for inspiration for blacks to embrace their black culture and remind themselves in how we have made it. We do not owe America or Africa anything. We Can Succeed in Every Aspect of Life.
Category: Biography & Autobiography

This unforgettable memoir was the basis for the Academy Award nominated film 12 Years a Slave. This is the true story of Solomon Northup, who was born and raised as a freeman in New York. He lived the American dream, with a house and a loving family - a wife and two kids. Then one day he was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in the deep south. These are the true accounts of his twelve hard years as a slave - many believe this memoir is even more graphic and disturbing than the film. His extraordinary journey proves the resiliency of hope and the human spirit despite the most grueling and formidable of circumstances. Includes the original illustrations.
Category: History

Here is the harrowing true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man living in New York. He was kidnaped by unscrupulous slave hunters and sold into slavery where he endured unimaginable degradation and abuse until his rescue twelve years later. A powerful and riveting condemnation of American slavery.
Category: Biography & Autobiography

THIS EDITION HAS BEEN REPLACED BY A NEWER EDITION. This enlarged edition of the most significant and celebrated slave narrative now completes the Jacobs family saga, surely one of the most memorable in all of American history. John Jacobs's short slave narrative, A True Tale of Slavery, published in London in 1861, adds a brother's perspective to Harriet Jacobs's own autobiography. It is an exciting addition to this now classic work, as John Jacobs presents additional historical information about family life so well described already by his sister. Importantly, it presents the people, places, and events Harriet Jacobs wrote about from the different perspective of a male narrator. Once more, Jean Yellin, who discovered this long-lost document, supplies annotation and authentication. She has also brought her Introduction up to date.
Category: Biography & Autobiography

In an adventurous and extraordinary life, Equiano (c.1745-c.1797) criss-crossed the Atlantic world, from West Africa to the Caribbean to the USA to Britain, either as a slave or fighting with the Royal Navy. His account of his life is not only one of the great documents of the abolition movement, but also a startling, moving story of danger and betrayal. Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries – but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.
Category: Biography & Autobiography

The eleventh book in the Libertus Mystery of Roman Britain series - Libertus has an important order to fulfil for Quintus Severus, who has commissioned a new mosaic. But when Lucius, the pie-maker, is found dead in Libertus' workshop, and Libertus' faithful slave Minimus is missing, he is once again dragged into a criminal underworld. Can Libertus find Minimus, clear him of the murder, and discover who really killed the pie-seller, and why? The omens aren't looking good . . .
Category: Fiction